Is an Online degree useful for law school?

I'm new to this website and looking forward to your help and discussions. Here's my situation, I'm currently attending an online university called American Public University (not sure if any of you have heard of the school) It is part of American Public University System. It is Regionally Accredited by the North Central Association for Schools and Colleges. I'm pursuing my B.A. in History with a minor in Middle East Studies and would love to move onto to Law School, But I'm very concerned Law Schools won't take my on-line degree into consideration for Admissions.

I want to apply to all 4-tier ranking law schools from Yale, Columbia, to Whittier, University of Southern California, and University of Texas.

If you can't get over the online school stigma that is suggested by other LSD posters, take a look at transferring to a brick and mortar school in your area that offers online courses; an extension campus, perhaps. Your degree or transcript will not indicate that you went to school online, only that you attended the "regular" school, just like everyone else.

A lot of universities have evening programs. I'd be surprised if your local universities do not.

They don't really offer night classes like before, because of the budget cuts California is going through. Majority of the Upper-Division History classes are either day or mid-afternoon courses. It really sucks too, since it will take much longer for me to finish that what I want it to anticipate for Graduation.

Nearest schools to me are either Cal State LA, or Cal State Northridge. Both have been suffering from reducing class offerings.

APUS also operates American Military University. A good friend of mine was accepted to William and Mary with an AMU BS and great LSAT score. I think the latter carried more weight than the former.

Good Luck.

That's impressive! Congratulations to your friend for getting accepted into William & Mary. That's a good, competitive school to get accepted into. Its brings more confidence to me about applying to law school using my undergraduate degree from APUS.

For what it is worth, I am an someone who is merely considering law school, my undergrad degree is from Strayer University, not prestigious in any way shape or form. It was the 11th college/university that I attended in pursuit of my BS over the course of 16 years. I chose Strayer because they were situated near where I lived and worked and had a program flexible enough to help me take the big mess of transcripts that I had and apply them to a degree in two years of part-time study. Earning the degree helped me in my primary career (IT/InfoSec) as my employer felt that I was now worth 15% more then before I had the degree. Despite this I felt disappointed in the way that I had wrapped things up and the degree that I received.

I decided that I wanted an additional degree, from a more (positively) recognizable educational institution, but at the same time I was unwilling to walk away from my career. So I started looking for respected schools that had programs geared towards working adults that were either in the DC region or that had means of offering courses to those not physically nearby for a lion's share of the degree program. My short list came down to Johns Hopkins, George Washington, Columbia, and Harvard. The first two being near DC, the other two had on-line offerings. After looking them over, contacting faculty & students, and considering various pros and cons that stood out to me, I chose Harvard (specifically Harvard's Extension School for a Masters (ALM) degree in Information Technology).

This degree requires twelve course, one of them must be in person at the campus in Cambridge, MA. The path that I have chosen has lead to three classes in person, I am currently in the last few weeks of this third and final in residence course. Two of these course I have flown up for class mid-day, attended the class at night, and then flown back home the following morning, the other course was a J-term course, which I rented a room for three weeks, took vacation time from work and stayed near campus.

While working on this degree I have become more aware of how much impact legal matters have in the InfoSec world, which has lead me to consider pursing a JD. Over the last two years or so, I have reached out to speak with members of the admissions teams at some of the DC area law schools with PT programs, as well as students who are attending these schools. Some of my areas of concern are the relatively poor performance when I started school back in early 90s and a degree from a non-prestigious school. Most of the advice that I received was of a similar nature. The poor performance early on would hurt some as it lead to a lower overall GPA (~3.1), but the overall improving trend, and a strong finish (last 13 courses came in at over 3.9) would at least be noted. As for the school that I graduated from, no one seem particular bothered by it, albeit no one was particularly excited about it either, I suspect that the same would said of the school that you are attending.

I would like to take a moment to plug Harvard Extension School (HES) as a possible option for those finding it difficult to find a college that meets their needs to complete a Bachelors degree. To earn a Bachelors (ALB) at HES, one needs to complete 4 classes in person. Under graduate courses currently cost ~$950 each. Generally speaking admissions into a degree program is based on successful completion of three courses (see their website for details).

I wish you the nest of luck on completing your degree and your pursuit of law school.

For what it is worth, I am an someone who is merely considering law school, my undergrad degree is from Strayer University, not prestigious in any way shape or form. It was the 11th college/university that I attended in pursuit of my BS over the course of 16 years. I chose Strayer because they were situated near where I lived and worked and had a program flexible enough to help me take the big mess of transcripts that I had and apply them to a degree in two years of part-time study. Earning the degree helped me in my primary career (IT/InfoSec) as my employer felt that I was now worth 15% more then before I had the degree. Despite this I felt disappointed in the way that I had wrapped things up and the degree that I received.

I decided that I wanted an additional degree, from a more (positively) recognizable educational institution, but at the same time I was unwilling to walk away from my career. So I started looking for respected schools that had programs geared towards working adults that were either in the DC region or that had means of offering courses to those not physically nearby for a lion's share of the degree program. My short list came down to Johns Hopkins, George Washington, Columbia, and Harvard. The first two being near DC, the other two had on-line offerings. After looking them over, contacting faculty & students, and considering various pros and cons that stood out to me, I chose Harvard (specifically Harvard's Extension School for a Masters (ALM) degree in Information Technology).

This degree requires twelve course, one of them must be in person at the campus in Cambridge, MA. The path that I have chosen has lead to three classes in person, I am currently in the last few weeks of this third and final in residence course. Two of these course I have flown up for class mid-day, attended the class at night, and then flown back home the following morning, the other course was a J-term course, which I rented a room for three weeks, took vacation time from work and stayed near campus.

While working on this degree I have become more aware of how much impact legal matters have in the InfoSec world, which has lead me to consider pursing a JD. Over the last two years or so, I have reached out to speak with members of the admissions teams at some of the DC area law schools with PT programs, as well as students who are attending these schools. Some of my areas of concern are the relatively poor performance when I started school back in early 90s and a degree from a non-prestigious school. Most of the advice that I received was of a similar nature. The poor performance early on would hurt some as it lead to a lower overall GPA (~3.1), but the overall improving trend, and a strong finish (last 13 courses came in at over 3.9) would at least be noted. As for the school that I graduated from, no one seem particular bothered by it, albeit no one was particularly excited about it either, I suspect that the same would said of the school that you are attending.

I would like to take a moment to plug Harvard Extension School (HES) as a possible option for those finding it difficult to find a college that meets their needs to complete a Bachelors degree. To earn a Bachelors (ALB) at HES, one needs to complete 4 classes in person. Under graduate courses currently cost ~$950 each. Generally speaking admissions into a degree program is based on successful completion of three courses (see their website for details).

I wish you the nest of luck on completing your degree and your pursuit of law school.